Nvidia's upcoming NV36 chip - likely to be released as the GeForce FX 5700 - will feature DDR 2 SDRAM support across a 128-bit memory bus, and will be offered running at a variety of core and memory clock speeds.

IBM has taken its hosting business to the next level. It has been offering Linux application hosting for a year, and is now adding it on Windows, AIX and AS400 architectures, as its iSeries, pSeries and xSeries.

A lawsuit filed against Microsoft in Los Angeles this week is attempting to hold the company responsible for the damage wrought by the systemic failures of security in its sofware, and for its conspicuous failure to fix them adequately. The suit follows hard on the heels of the publication of a paper on Microsoft security which, among other things, suggested that the company should be held legally responsible for such damages.

Sony today reiterated its view that it has prevailed in its attempt to force the European Commission (EC) to treat the PlayStation 2 as a computer and not a games console for the purpose of calculating import duty on the machine.

The European Union has taken the first step towards standardised ID with biometrics on-board, in the shape of two proposals from the Commission covering a uniform format for visas and residence permits for third country nationals. But this is only the first stage; the Commission's announcement notes that The Thessaloniki European Council earlier this year "confirmed that 'a coherent approach is needed in the EU on biometric identifiers or biometric data which would result in harmonised solutions for documents for third country nationals, EU citizens' passports and information systems (VIS and SIS II)', and invited the Commission 'to prepare the appropriate proposals, starting with the visa.'"

Looking to kick a competitor while it's down, HP has started a new campaign in which it will provide various software porting services to Sun Microsystems customers at no charge if they agree to abandon Sparc/Solaris systems.

VeriSign has responded to a deadline from Internet quango ICANN and today suspended its SiteFinder service. SiteFinder redirected DNS wildcards, such as misspelled URLs, to Verisign's own website, a practice which breaches time-honored Internet behavior. The move broke many spam filters and in its brief life - it was launched on September 15 - had generated three lawsuits.